"You will no' die!" He reached for her, clutching her nape. "You hold on!"
She whispered, "I think...it's too late."
He grasped her chin, forcing her to face him. He was pale and staring at her with a crazed expression. "It's no'! Damn you, Maddy MacCarrick, we're goin' tae be together. Believe me." His eyes were wet, his lashes spiking. "Lass, I could no' love you this much for nothing."
A tear slipped down her cheek, and he brushed it away. She felt the smallest tinge of hope.
"Hold on, for me." Two arms slipped beneath her, gingerly lifting. But where did Ethan think he could take her? "Just stay with me, Maddy girl." She felt warmth enveloped in his scent as he wrapped his coat around her. In the cocoon of his arms, the constant screams finally dimmed, the cries dulled.
As Ethan carried her, hastening his long strides, Maddy heard one of the nuns cry, "You cannot take a contagious patient past the perimeter!"
We made it to the perimeter?She squinted her eyes open again and found them at a doorway, so close to being outside in the night -
"You might kill her by moving her!" another said.
But if Ethan thought he could get her free, then Maddy wanted to leave this place. How fervently she wished not to die here - not to be burned on a pile of bodies.
"Step aside," Ethan said. As if in a daze, she saw him draw a pistol and c**k it. "I'll kill anyone who gets in my way. And I'll do it gladly."
Then...she was kissed by the coolness of the night air.
"We're goin' home, lass," he murmured down to her. "I'm takin' you home."
As soon as Ethan carried her across the threshold of that hell, blackness beckoned and she promptly passed out.
Chapter 45~46
Chapter Forty-five
As Ethan ran a damp cloth over Maddy's body, he could hear Fiona speaking in low tones with the doctors in the next room.
Two days had passed since Ethan had brought Madeleine here. Ethan had told Quin to make sure his house in Grosvenor was empty by the time he was due to return, but Fiona had refused to go, browbeating Quin into telling all. Then she'd set about assembling an army of physicians in London for a wife that Ethan had "neglected to mention to her."
Even after two days, and all those doctors working, Maddy was still so pale, as if all the blood had left her body. She tossed in restless sleep, her breathing labored. Tonight she burned with fever again.
"I'm going tae get her well," Ethan had declared to the physicians, but he knew what they'd deemed Maddy's chances.
Yet they simply didn't knowher as he did. They only saw her size and felt her weak pulse. And after Ethan told them about her possible pregnancy and then of finding blood on the back of her nightgown in the infirmary, they'd informed him that she'd lost the baby and would be further weakened.
Fiona had said, "Doona worry, son, she'll have more bairns once she gets - "
"Do you think I give a damn about that?" he'd snapped.
"But the look on your face when you realized...I just thought..."
His reaction hadn't been from learning that she'd lost the babe; it had been from knowing she'd lost it in that hellhole.
By herself.
Maddy's body had received his seed and had been ready to give them a babe. But his countless lies had driven her away, straight into danger, putting her in this grueling struggle for life.
When he'd first feared that they'd lost their bairn, his mind had whispered,It could be the curse once more....
Yet Ethan knew none of this was about the curse - no matter how easy it would be to assign blame to it. No,his actions had precipitated all this, and he fully accepted all the fault.
Hour after hour, Ethan watched over her, staring at each rise and fall of her chest, willing her to keep fighting...one more breath in...one more breath exhaled....
In between fevered dreams, for what felt like days, she'd heard Ethan speaking to her.
With his voice growing thick, he'd pleaded, "Maddy lass, doona leave me." Other times, he'd threatened her. "You'll never be rid of me," he'd snapped; then, as if he worked to calm his tone, he'd added, "so you'd best...you'd best stay with me."
And he'd railed at her, his voice booming so loud the bed had seemed to shake. "You canna do this - take my goddamned heart and then leave me! You think I will no' follow?"
She knew he was constantly there, was aware of his movements and comprehended his words, but she couldn't seem to open her heavy eyelids or speak.
At night, he would wrap his body around hers, keeping her warm, whispering against her hair, "You enjoy being contrary. Then prove them all wrong and get better." He'd clutched her hip, then balled his fist there. "Ah, lass, they canna understand how strong you are."
Sometimes she heard other voices, doctors, she thought, and occasionally an older woman with a Scottish accent. The woman spoke now: "Ethan, these physicians are doing their best."
"It's no' good enough!" he roared in answer, then cursed the unseen doctors in some of the vilest language Maddy had ever heard. Directly after he kicked them out of the room, a door slammed, and a cool breeze whistled over her from the impact.
Finally, her eyelids didn't feel too heavy to open. She blinked against the light for several moments. She perceived his form standing near the bed and waited as her vision began to focus.
He raked his fingers through his disheveled hair as a pretty red-haired lady frowned up at him.
"She'll wake soon, Ethan. The fever has broken."
"They said thatyesterday . And still she has no'."
"If she did right now," the woman said, "you would scare the poor girl to death. You've no' shaved or changed your clothes in days. And you look half-mad."
"You ken Iam half-mad, well on the verge."
When he began pacing, she said, "You must calm yourself. Your anger with the physicians will no' help your wife" - her gaze flickered over Maddy and away, then returned immediately - "but slamming the door like that just might wake her."
"What do you - ?" His shoulders tensed. He rasped, "Are you sayin' she's...?"
"You dinna tell me she has such pretty blue eyes. Look behind you, son."
He whirled around, seeming to loom over the bed. Maddy stared up in shock. His eyes were red and wild, his beard growing. His clothes were wrinkled, his sleeves rolled. He looked as if he wanted to launch himself at her.
The woman said something in Gaelic that made Ethan scowl and his hand shoot up to hisbeard ? He froze, and his brows drew together.
How long had he been with her?
Ethan looked at her with such yearning, but he seemed to force himself to back away from her. "You need tae drink," he suddenly said, dashing to a nearby pitcher. When he poured, Maddy could hear the pitcher clanking against the glass.
The woman raised her eyebrows at Ethan, then told Maddy, "I'm Lady Fiona, your mother-in-law, and I'm verra pleased to be meeting you this morning."
When Ethan returned to the bed with a glass of water, Maddy asked, "Where am I?"
He lifted Maddy's head and helped her drink. "You're in London, in our town house." Maddy couldn't seem to drink it fast enough. "Easy, then," he murmured.
When he took the nearly empty glass away, Maddy asked, "C-Corrine?"
"I could no' find her, but I have men searching in Paris," he said. "Maddy, I doona believe she'd been sick."
Maddy closed her eyes with worry, then quickly opened them, afraid to go to sleep again.
He ran his hand over the back of his neck. "But Bea - "
"No," she whispered. "I know."
Lady Fiona said something in Gaelic, then in English added, "Ethan, why don't you go get cleaned up now while I visit with my new daughter-in-law?"
He hesitated, then the two of them seemed to share a look. Before he turned to the door, Ethan gruffly said to Maddy, "Verra glad you're better, lass." As he trudged from the room, she thought she saw him swiping a sleeve over his eyes.Oh, Ethan.
Once he'd left, Lady Fiona said, "He's been worried about you, to say the least." She sat on the edge of the bed. "Now, I know you must have many questions...."
"I didn't get anyone sick here, did I?"
"None of us. No' at all. To be on the safe side, I'm staying in this house for a week." She added dryly, "I hope you like cards."
Biting her bottom lip, Maddy said, "I...Lady Fiona, I lost the baby, didn't I?"